


a warm red light (a reshuffle)

by handschuhmaus



Category: Star Wars (Marvel Comics), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, Philosophical themes, especially for background on Thrawn, not necessarily canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-02-15 23:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18679153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus
Summary: just ...another girl, in some kind of ...love, with ...another Sith Lord.speak the story into being and maybe, just maybe, things fall into the arrangement thereby ordained.





	a warm red light (a reshuffle)

**Author's Note:**

> At some level it's a Daae fixit, at some level it's a response to the idea, and at some level it's extremely (but not 100%) self-insert-y. ~~Because we all know I want to go all Monsigneur Bienvenue on one Emperor Palpatine. (Except...does that really work?) also sometimes I go by DT online, standing for Darth Tenebrous (because I have a few Rugess Nome URLs)~~

"Should this be pity?" the voice is imperious, familiar, the steely half-smile ironic within the creased face, under that horrible black hood. "Who gave you access to my rooms?"

DT looks at the floor, notes half a dozen things about the carpet, and then dares to look up into eyes like dots of coal in amber. Breathes, admits "No one."

"Then why have you intruded? By some right you should be dead." 

_Funny he should ask about pity. Hate is maybe next door neighbors to love and you read a few too many detective novels, a few too many minutes of poorly archived government meetings on Naboo for some dull research project, and just two analyses of Anakin Skywalker... and you end up staring at a hairbrush that confirms he (not Skywalker, Palpatine--this **is** his continuation) is just very much human and you wonder what minor grace put you in your current place, less like where and what he is._ DT's arms prickle with gooseflesh and nevertheless that is pity in green eyes staring into his. A bizarre response to the glare of the Emperor of the Galaxy.

"You must understand, I do not _like_ to be the object of obsession."

Tempting to mention Anakin Skywalker. But instead... "You were handsome once."

"Flowers are always dying. Decay becomes me. Besides," he grins, grimly, "The Jedi did this."

DT breathes deeply. "You're correct. You have destroyed much. But--that is not all you have done. You repaired A--Vader, to a useful state. Self-serving, yes. But not strictly necessary."

"What do you know of that? And why? Give me a reason, before you die." Lightsaber hilt now pressed to rib cage. Not...the shortest line to the heart by far, but it would hit. And also confirmation of the suspicion that he is ...like Vader. Not entirely, but the same sort of powers.

"You used to _know_ things. I do...data management, triage you might call it. People talk about Vader's powers. I only put two and one and four together and got seven; men like Vader do not come out of nowhere."

"I used to _know_ things? And I don't any longer?" 

"Perhaps you do. But there is at once far more and less to concern you. Anything is a threat; nothing an advantage to your political position. A precarious place."

"And are you implying I should take on a vulnerability?" he scoffs, very subtly.

DT places her hand on the hand holding the lightsaber hilt, wrinkled and spotted. "Do you like your gilded cage, sir?" 

" _This_ \--" he gestures expansively with the other hand, "is what I was meant to do." But it is said with no pride, none of the interest that the words might typically be associated with.

"But not all you could be, or you have been," DT says urgently. 

"Why?" He lets his hand fall and the saber housing tilt downward, a somewhat less threatening posture, albeit one that could, she is very conscious, require gastrointestinal surgery. 

"You're lucky, to do such things and not to have been claimed by the Je--well, you get my meaning. I would have liked to be that. And I wouldn't have. Humanity is a mass of contradictions. But I've devoted years wondering why you are what you are."

"I think it should be obvious to you of all people, then, that I am no puzzle to be solved," and yet mercy of mercies, the tyrant of such catastrophic temper has slipped back into diplomatic cadence of yesteryear, even as it is a defensive statement.

"But isn't everyone?" And she mirrors that ironic smile with haunted eyes. "You know that."

"I do not care to admit my opinions on the question. With utter honesty, you have me at some disadvantage." He impatiently fiddles with the saber hilt...but the decorative bits, not the activation switch (or at least so it would appear).

"Well. You control Lord Vader," the wording is calculated.

"Broadly, yes. On every single action, no."

"Mmm. I think we could both acknowledge that obsession can be inconvenient...?" (And what round the stars is DT doing, with no training in diplomacy, psychiatry limited to a handful of random papers and a hundred inapplicable abstracts crossing the data processing department and getting hung up in algorithms not quite used to dealing with messy personhood?)

He sniffs, as if amused. " _Is_ it obsession if they want to kill you first?"

"Oh. Funny you should say that. A friend of a friend, who's a lowly doctor on...Vader's ship (funny I'm not allowed to know its name, isn't it?) insomuch as lowly is possible in those circumstances, wants to plead for clemency for the best nurse he's ever had."

"What is this person guilty of, and why should I concern myself with them?"

"Oh, Daaé--" and he frowns at the name "--shares my fault, my sin, if even more fancifully," in for a mouse droid, in for a starship, what does it matter indicting yourself at this point? "and Vader took... exception to this."

The Emperor of the godsforsaken galaxy rolls his eyes. "The _Jedi_ were far more inclined to ... _magical_ healing, and even they weren't going around resurrecting the dead."

"She's not dead. He did to her what you're proposing to do to me with his fancy laser sword." The sarcasm was apt to end in trouble and yet...face your fear and obsession all in one! Was that not what DT was doing?

"Vader...is a man for whom there has only ever been a singular woman, if I take your meaning correctly. This...Daaé would do well to reconsider--and downgrade--her prospects." He pauses for a moment. "Lest you get your hopes up, for all I am being uncharacteristically merciful, I will never reciprocate whatever it is you're feeling."

"Feelings, sir, are highly subjective, and I would doubt your guess gets at one tenth of my inner perception," DT points out, although the "fancifully" had been meant; the wishes were the emotions that entangled with and ran the mechanism that allows her some strange predictive power applicable only to the man in front of her. A forecast, mind, that accounts for at least two, if not three or four, most likely options. She is fairly certain Daaé's workplace daydreams are of a more intimately personal pedigree, the way they had been described to her. Then again, who can sound the workings of human hearts?

He studies her skeptically for a moment. "Fine. Why is it you want to plead for her to me?"

"It's Vader she's offended," DT points out again. 

"Oh, and you think I could just override his personnel choices?" She still hears the unsaid meaning that he certainly could, but finds it a poor choice.

"I--and the doctor--don't care if she's reassigned somewhere she probably wouldn't see Vader in a hundred years. But the Empire needs people good at what they do. Squandering lives over someone's emotional mishap is a fool's game."

His mouth creases, as if in thought but also hinting at some amusement. "Then there's someone you should meet, DT Lansing." Must've read the uniform name tag still, foolishly, ridiculously, on her sweater. "If Miss Daaé proves resilient enough, he may have a place for her. Appear at 1315 tomorrow, and bring any documents you have on her."

"Can her further treatment be authorized?"

"As you will, no doubt," he says, a slightly puzzling statement. And then he moves to lift her hand from his with his other hand, but strangely lingers at the touch. But DT has long thought she would like to touch him, just in this very human way, and he surely cannot experience much of such contact, the way he acts. Starving for it, which she has before, even just the slightest window of openness with another human.

In coordination with her thoughts, the sinking Coruscant sun sends rays through an unobtrusive window and they strike a large industrial prism on the side table that is probably a laser or laser testing part. Like a stained glass window, the diffracted light illuminates the face and extended arms (the black fabric greedily only absorbs it) of the emperor in blue, green, yellow, orange, and red on her hands, and then distilled warmth, in the infrared, just beyond his reach on her arm. Some impulse drives her to pull his hand into that warmth, perhaps a metaphor for the sun itself embracing him, and reminder that he, too, is another living thing.

He stares, in some puzzlement, and then gives an instruction, "And wear that necklace again tomorrow, _not_ for my aesthetic amusement, but because the individual I wish you to meet will find it interesting." He very slowly, gently, lets her hand go, places or perhaps replaces the lightsaber into a pocket or slit in his almost penitential robe, nothing next to the the finery he used to wear. "Do go. Even a Sith Lord requires sleep, Ms. Lansing"

\---

**The next day:**

"...and--your message indicates you have personnel you wish me to consider taking on, during this mission?" the new-made Grand Admiral Mitth'raw'nuruodo (but as just yet wearing the guise of a slightly lower and far more common rank) says, consulting the meeting agenda.

As if on cue, the door opens to admit one DT Lansing, wearing the same necklace which Sidious expects is cortosis, or at least an alloy, a thing which guards her mind from him sensing...emotion or thoughts that might otherwise be loud.

"Greetings, Ms. Lansing," the Emperor calls, beckoning her closer.

"Lansing?" Thrawn asks carefully. "Are you the data analysis the science corps officer spoke of?"

"Probably," she agrees. "Far more than I would like of the fleet's measurements and observations pass through me or my programs."

"Your Majesty, with all due respect, I do not think our mission will be conducive to her accustomed tasks," but it is also a question; Thrawn has already ascertained that not all assignments are made for expedience. Some may be punishments, some political favors, though Thrawn seems knowledgeable enough about the court that he probably does not think this is a political favor. 

"Oh, no, Ms. Lansing is here to make the case for the individual you are to consider, who is currently...in hospital?"

Lansing nods confirmation. "She is a nurse. Well, she isn't working at the hospital, she, ah, incurred injuries in her previous position." Curiously, the presence of Thrawn or perhaps the distance physically between them in this airy room defuses the tension present in their last encounter.

Thrawn creases his mouth thoughtfully. "Injuries?"

"She...ah, ran afoul of--frankly, Lord Vader," she explains with some hesitance.

The Chiss glances at the ceiling as if beseeching some archaic higher power for patience or some such thing, and then looks questioningly at the Emperor. So, in fact, does Lansing. 

"...At this interval," he says hesitantly, words nearly eluding him, "Ms. Daaé has not offended _me_. Else this segment of our conversation would not be taking place."

Thrawn only nods and looks thoughtful, as if he is filing this data away in his mental data on the Emperor. There is... a hint of approval on DT's face.

"Are you willing to take her on then, sir--Admiral?"

He hesitates a moment but answers "Yes."

"Mitth'raw'nuruodo," says the Emperor, perhaps not perfectly, but seemingly passably. "What do you make of Ms. Lansing's...jewelry?"

This surprises the art enthusiast, but he looks questioningly at her and then at the necklace. "It is of very plain design and if it is precious metal it is not obviously such, or is precious for a reason besides ornamentation," he decides.

Sidious's mouth creases and he looks expectantly at Thrawn, wishing the Chiss would offer something further about the jewelry. 

"I would hazard that it has largely ...sentimental or symbolic value," he allows, and turns his own anticipation of a response on both of them.

Lansing shrugs "It's a family heirloom, apparently. It was left to me as a child when my great-grandmother died, and my parents... always insisted it had protective value."

Palpatine has no such facts or insights to offer; without examining it even more closely, and probably directing some tests to be run, he has no confirmation of his suspicion that it is cortosis, and for all he suspects Mitth'raw'nuruodo has an interest in the technology of Force suppression, overtly mentioning the topic seems inexpedient. All the same, he comments "Perhaps it does. You may go, Ms. Lansing."

And she does, after a brief moment that seems occupied by her curiosity on why he showed so much interest in the necklace. _What,_ he wonders, _would be gained by guarding a person from the Force like that?_ But he has one or two more matters to be discussed with Thrawn.

\---

**A week later:**

Daaé's eyes flicker open. It has been a long delirium of lucid, hellish dreams, interlaced with hospital sounds which should be so normal for her but, she realizes, aren't in the usual context. There is ...a man standing over her, but a man whose skin is blue and whose eyes staring down at her are red, all red from pupil to sclera, and she is not at all sure this isn't another dream. Even if he is in an Imperial Admiral's uniform.

"Good afternoon, Miss...Daaé? Or is that your first name?" he says. He has a very pleasant voice, but an unusual accent to go with the strange complexion.

She opens her mouth, just to say that's fine, for she only has one name anymore, but only a faint croak comes out.

"Droid," he says with a commanding tone, but not a belittling one, "can this patient have some water?"

Her eyes flutter closed for a moment: she is _so_ tired, and no sooner has she opened them again than a manipulator arm shoves a straw between her lips and she almost reflexively sucks down the icy cold water. It tastes good; she hasn't eaten or drank anything, at least and remembered it, since before ...Vader. 

And what was she supposed to learn from that? For all her dreams, she had made no actual demands of him, only, only an offering--but would she never be good enough?

"Daaé, if I may presume to call you that, you have been offered a position within the medical department on my ship. It may be more...interesting than you are used to, as we are headed to regions largely unknown to the Empire. I prefer to give my personnel the option at this juncture; a crew that does not resent serving under the authority of a Chiss--for that is what I am--is one that works more smoothly together, and with me," the Admiral says. The words blur a little in her ears, but she grasps the gist and blinks blearily up at him.

"I am Admiral Mitth'raw'nuruodo; as few human tongues care to attempt my full name, you may call me Thrawn. I have been informed of your previous predilection, but would advise you not to fall in love with me; even were I tempted to reciprocate, it would be most inappropriate." But it is dry, almost a joke but one she is in on. "That said, I understand the impulse to hero worship myself, and I do not mean to be unapproachable. I cannot take on all minor concerns, but if you should have something which needs to come to me, I will listen."

Daaé tries to respond to this speech, but her tongue, unused for that indefinite stretch, doesn't quite cooperate. "Admiral Mitth'aw'nu'do. I ascept." She frowns at herself at that, which also feels funny for some reason. But in any case, there was no question of not accepting. She was good at being a nurse; she would continue being one, and maybe some day she would even learn more, and enough to do some doctoring.

He makes a slight amused sound, probably at the fumbled rendition of his name. "Have courage. I believe your prospects are good."

She nods at this, unsure what to say and not quite trusting her voice anyway, and it reveals that her throat is sore.

Thrawn leaves, and she drifts hazily back into a doze, waking only to sip some water. Despite all the sleep she's been getting recently, she still feels tired. When Daaé awakes again, it is to a droid attendant announcing another visitor. The lights through the small window seem to be drifting towards evening. 

"Hello," says the visitor simply. She examines her, and can only deem her to be a functionary of some sort. 

"I trust you're recovering well?" she asks. 

"Mmmm-hmm," the erstwhile nurse acknowledges, not quite yes and not quite no. She isn't sure what the answer to the perfunctory question should be. Perhaps there is too much pain medication running in her blood stream for her to accurately assess her physical condition, the more threatening; but she also, she realizes now, went through a sort of psychic shock, with Vader rejecting her like that. 

A love that demanded little of him and offered near everything she could give... but it seemed that acknowledgement, even calm rejection, much less appreciation of her feelings, was too much for Vader to give. She feels mentally fractured.

"You've a post with Mitth'raw'nuruodo--Thrawn, now. I think he is probably a good man," her visitor says awkwardly. "I don't want you to think I have influence with the Emperor, certainly not Vader, but I...think I may understand some of how you felt--are feeling. I'm DT."

"Is it so wrong to love him?" 

After a moment, DT says thoughtfully, "Only if you demand its object be perfect and the sentimental act reciprocated. Which I do not, can not."

Daaé decides this is a philosophical distinction, and probably not one she has ever cared about. "I love him for his power and presence and...everything about him. I don't think love works like that." Which is the longest thing she has said since and, appropriately, it is about Vader, even if he cares nothing for her. 

Her visitor seems lost in thought. "No, no, I suppose it doesn't," she says softly, after a long silence. "I wish you well, Nurse Daaé." 

She thinks she should wish her something similar, but cannot muster her thoughts into the shape of a sentiment, so only murmurs "Goodbye." 

DT nods acknowledgement, and exits her room, leaving her alone with the dim ghost of Vader in her head.

\---

**A fortnight later:**

It reminds Sidious of that fateful night at the opera, when he had swayed the boy that was Anakin Skywalker then. It is rare that he can get away from the eyes of crowds these days, and yet here they are on the balcony in the open air, away from the forced revelry.

Vader's respirator would seem to be malfunctioning, working in an irregular rhythm it should not be, but he says (perhaps too perfectly translated by the vocorder) "Yes, my Master?"

"I sense unrest in you, my boy," damnit, the sentiment, the inconvenience and not quite affect, is still around from being awoken by Lansing.

"I--of all the things I have done, I regret one that should not matter," he is being oddly open and the respirator is going like a winded draughtbeast. Something is wrong. "But what's one drop of blood in a sea of it? How can something so little affect me so much when...?"

He doesn't finish but Sidious can hear a panicked and awful reverential scream of "PADMÉ!" through their Force bond. Still not especially enlightening. 

"What does saving one pawn on an infinite dejarik board matter to the queen?" Sidious mutters, out of some self-centering strain of thought learned from impartial father figures. This may be a major difference between them: Vader is still concerned over one more barbaric casualty, whilst Sidious wonders at his own inconsequential venture into mercy. For Anakin Skywalker had never thought of himself quite as vile and wretched by birth, and Palpatine hasn't given a second thought to the prospect that he might be less than fated to destroy since Plagueis claimed him with one more extravagant piece of verbal abuse.

"I killed a dream," but the vocorder robs his words of the anguished inflection sensible in the Force.

"Whatever do you mean by that?" Sidious is, honestly, slightly worried, and this with the reflection and nonsensical statement has made him short-tempered.

"The respirator was not working properly and the droids say my lungs were accumulating fluid. I could not breathe, I could not sleep, and then I killed some nurse, only through believing her to be some foul fantasy guilty only of claiming to 'love me'." A pause substitutes for the emphasis he cannot give the absurdity. 

"Daaé?" asks Sidious, suddenly believing that. Vader's breathing slows properly, to what is probably a forced calm, and he gives an incremental nod. And for all that the career politician's, the Sith's surrounding himself with pain, mind goes unbidden onto _You killed her... the woman you cared about_ , he doles out a capricious mercy, capped with a woefully benevolent grin, "Then you are forgiven."

"Master, I apologize; I am not myself." Vader thinks that was mockery, and wishes to move off the topic.

"No, Daaé lives," he says recklessly, and uncertain how that will affect the mercurial once-Anakin Skywalker. "And Vader," in offhand addition, "excuse yourself and go to your meditation chamber--and _sleep_. It will improve your condition."

He makes a mental note to check on the maintenance for Vader's respirator, and despite that's being a strictly practical matter, wonders at how one minor mercy, insignificant, has served to reawaken his sympathies for Vader. The manipulator manipulated, it seems.

\---

**Months later:**

Daaé finds a small package, much mishandled by mail services, by her door, no source address.

When she opens it, cautiously, there is a synthskin patch with a piece already cut from it, and a broken button, a button like on Vader's suit, both wrapped in a mangled piece of Vader's cloak, with singed edges. Her heart swells uneasily. Is this mockery? And how is it that her feelings for the man could be rekindled so easily? There is a fright reflex to jam the box down the garbage chute, where her asshole supervisor had once sent all her treasures, as if she must now take part in her own torture. But as she merely flings it aside on the bed, she catches sight of text on the inside of the carton. "I'M SORR/" it says, part of the last letter missing thanks to a hole in the box.

She doesn't quite know whether this was Vader or not but it still almost puts her at ease. Back, not to all her fantasies of Vader, but to a peace with the fascination. Admiral Mitth'raw'nuruodo runs a ship very differently; nowadays her superiors take an interest in her well-being and advancement, and although she was docked 50 credits salary last month for an unauthorized and unexpectedly destructive experiment, no one is confiscating her personal effects, much less throwing them in the garbage chute. Plus, it turns out that relationships among those of the same rank are de facto permitted here, and the environment has led to that set of choices being one she hasn't, but could almost explore.

She presses the synth skin scrap against her stomach, or rather, technically, her abdomen, right by the hole where she already wears such a patch; lightsaber wounds to the intestines do not heal well, and as yet the doctors insist on continued access to the inner patches. It is not exactly mechanical, but Daaé wonders about the necessity of Vader's mechanical limbs, and whether the injuries done them necessitating synthetic prostheses were in similar contexts. Had _he_ once adored whoever hurt him? 

\---

Palpatine hasn't actually seen Lansing since the Daaé affair, and yet it feels as though accusing eyes staring and warm hands tugging him into a rainbow of diffracted light are present in the document he is reading, even if it is only a report on efficiencies in the agricultural commissions. 

"Guest to see you, your majesty," the intercom says. 

"Who?" he asks back.

"Some...functionary. Says there's some urgent development on the Kashyyyk matter." 

His eyes pan over his desk and the document, spread over the display so that he can cross reference the figures with the recommendations and conclusions made. After a moment, he asks, impishly "Named Lansing?"

"Er, yes."

"Send her in." he allows, even though this is patently bizarre on his part.

After about five minutes, a soft knock comes at the door, and she enters, looking slightly frazzled. "I would wish to trade favors, although I do not know what I have to offer."

"But it is urgent?"

"I want you to be merciful. I was finally able to contact the epidemiologist whose figures the Grand Moff's arguments were based on, and they are not worthy cause for the actions he wants to take."

"Be that as it may, it is highly politically inexpedient for me to second-guess Wilhuff Tarkin. He already bears a grudge, reasonable from his perspective, against Vader, and I do not wish to incite mutiny or infighting. Power--Lansing--power makes them dangerous."

"It's not Tarkin's operation. He just masterminded sending in a handful of squads. Tell them there's been a mistake in their orders, or a confusion about the data, and they are to do a cleanup operation, no executions." 

Palpatine grimaces, but slowly answers. "I suppose that _does_ fit in with the ideal of bringing peace and order to the galaxy, although most of those who espouse the doctrine don't care about the Wookies." 

"You really want to waste life?" she asks, more as reinforcement than an argument. Sidious eyes the curtained window, through which shafts of light illuminate part of the room, and thinks back to unprecedented acceptance by a Muun and the dialectic chiaroscuro of crude architects or grand butchers that had marked his youth. He does not think Plagueis would have approved of Lansing (Amidala would have, though) but all the same that does not move him to reject her. Is it really necessary, now that he prune the galaxy of its members who have not expressly...opposed their rightful rulers? For a split second, he is a boy again, glowering under the disapproval of Cosinga, and the rueful conclusion can be nothing but that, at times, his empire brings the rebels on itself. 

"You think I can play at being benevolent," but it is an accusation, not a question. And he grumbles, whether from habit or for show he cannot say, and minimizes the document only to bring up a memo. "Kashyyyk operations, minimize violence. Your purpose is to deal with the aftermath of disease and disaster, not to inflict it," he dictates simply, and looks at Lansing after he presses the button. "I can, but I do not expect it to have much impact." She frowns.

"I don't subscribe to a futility of goodness, and--" she says with a shiver, "anyone could think themselves as good--or bad--in their mind as they like, but if they take no steps to act at kindness, they would never effect any changes."

He stares at her, with the bittersweet flush of a hundred echoes of Hego Damask's arguments against something like this. He thinks DT would be willing to entertain arguments that Cosinga wasn't good, but also that her slow revolution, if it is one, is not one the Sith would ever favor. It is nigh on unbelievable that this ... _flimsi-pusher_ should evoke grandeur and the seeds of benevolence in him. "Come, sit down," he indicates a window seat. "Is it not the tradition in the storybooks that a woman tells the king a tale?"

She sits, and now the light hits the window, making them picture of beast and...well, merely comely analyst. "I look at statistics all day," she says, almost sardonically, looking at her unmanicured nails, "it hardly makes me think of stories." 

"Oh," Palpatine says, sweetly, resolving not to think on the matter of his personal record, "there's many a story in those, true or not."

**fin.**


End file.
